Abstract
In order to understand better the neuropathological substrate of dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD) and to examine its interactions with Alzheimer's disease (AD), we examined autopsy brains from 21 cases of PD and Lewy body disease (LBD) with dementia. We separated brains in two groups according to the presence of Aβ deposits. In brains without Aβ, we found few or no Lewy bodies (LB) in the cerebral cortex. By contrast, in brains with Aβ, we observed significant increases in LB in the cerebral cortex (p < 0.01) and α-synuclein immunoreactive lesions in the cingulate cortex (p < 0.01). Immunoblots of α-synuclein from cingulate cortex in brains with Aβ showed significantly higher levels of insoluble α-synuclein compared to brains without Aβ. Our observations indicate that in cases of PD with dementia, the neocortex is not necessarily involved by LB. Furthermore, the presence of Aβ deposits in the cerebral cortex was associated with extensive α-synuclein lesions and higher levels of insoluble α-synuclein. This suggests that Aβ enhances the development of cortical α-synuclein lesions in cases of PD.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1183-1192 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Neurobiology of Aging |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2005 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We would like to thank Ms. Marylin Peper for her excellent technical assistance, and Ms. Audrey Horter for preparing the manuscript. This work was supported by the Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence (NINDS grant NS038377), the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (NIA grant AG 05146), NINDS grant NS38065 (MKL) and a grant from American Health Assistance Foundation (MKL).
Copyright:
Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Alzheimer's
- Aβ
- Dementia
- LBD
- Lewy body disease
- Lewy neurites
- PD
- Parkinson's disease